Longing for Those Girls’ Dolls of Old

Irecently got an American Girl catalog in the mail. Somehow, corporate Big Brother had figured out that I have a toddleraged girl and was priming the pump.

I smiled at the fond memories the catalog conjured of the days when I cherished my own doll, which I had to earn by memorizing every state capital. But when I opened the catalog, I gasped in horror.

Nowhere to be found were Samantha’s polished locks, or Felicity’s earnest smile, or Kirsten’s simple braids, or Addy’s worn shoes. Instead, the catalog was a scary explosion of glitter, bleached blonde and hot pink skirts. What the heck had happened to America’s classic doll company?

I’ve read tidbits about the decline of American Girl over the years.

I put my hands over my ears and hummed when I began to hear about the nowended (thanks to boycott pressure from prolife groups) “I Can” campaign, which promoted sketchy sexed and even abortion.

I was outgrowing the dolls when they introduced the narcissistic, “Just Like You” line that enabled girls to make a dollsize replica of themselves to play with. And I vaguely recall hearing something about dropping certain minority dolls from their offerings. In line with the company’s shift from an emphasis on history and learning to the consumerist and selfish demands of today’s children, these dolls were from their historical collection.

While I wasn’t much of a doll person as a child, I loved the historical aspect of American Girl. Each doll came with a story from an important period of American history, with corresponding books and learning guides.

I remember asking my mom about World War II after reading Molly’s books. Each girl’s story was marked by courage, infusing the dolls with a greater purpose than just being a vapid plaything.

Samantha, my doll, comes of age at the turn of the 20th century. She learns about the harsh realities of child labor in factories for many girls not as privileged as she is, and ultimately makes an act of charity and befriends a girl trapped in factory life.

Kirsten is a firstgeneration immigrant. Molly grows up in a family making wartime sacrifices. Addy escapes the slave trade. Felicity is a daughter of the American Revolution. These girls were not blankeyed, bigboobed Barbies. They were girl heroes.

Maybe that’s a little over the top. But the original American Girl is just not what it is today.

They did not have pink streaks in their hair or come with lip gloss as an accessory, as does this year’s “Girl of the Year.” The historical dolls were nowhere to be found in the catalog I got, which almost exclusively featured chintzy accessories and personalization options like hair color.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the “Just Like You” line is American Girl’s most popular. Because, why dress up an escaped slave, when you can dress a mini version of yourself in a sparkly tank top?

This is the great tragedy of American Girl’s shift from history to modernity. Not so much that their dolls have been sexualized, like everything else offered to little girls today.

Rather, it’s that the American Girl experience was about concurrently dressing a doll in a dress and imagining her place in history — whether it was sneaking down to help another girl trapped working in a factory, or snaking through the underground tunnels with nothing but a shoulder sack, or sitting on a rooftop eating an apple looking over Colonial Williamsburg as a young patriot.

The demise of American Girl, a company now owned by the same company that produces Barbie, exemplifies the reality that today’s materialism is just as targeted at our girls’ bodies as it is at their minds.

American Girl once used a toy to teach girls to think about how to find a place in history. No longer. Now, girls growing up in a selfie world just play with a toy version of themselves or some girl that glitters.

American Girl is an American corporate tragedy.